Borstal Boys

In tracing her family’s history of incarceration, Brown’s piece is both a personal memoir and a critical examination of Britain’s penal history. Brown is clear in her conclusion: The system creates criminals. While borstals may no longer exist, there are still five child prisons in England and Wales, and, in Brown’s opinion, nothing has improved.

In 2004, my half-brother got sentenced to a YOI after receiving a guilty verdict for armed robbery. My brother was sensitive and kind. He had an infectious smile and emanated warmth, which made others feel safe. One night sticks in my memory. I was 18. Me and my best friend were stranded at the train station, after a wild night of grinding and doing shots. I called my brother and within minutes he came zooming around the corner, jungle music blasting out of his car. I felt such pride that I had this cool older brother. I’m really sad I never got to know him better. I know that he was a good person though. Full of anarchic spirit. And he was the opposite of my dad in every way, but was forever clawing for the love that we all wanted from the man we held so high in our mind. I visited my brother when I was 13. You could smell the sadness in the room. All the boys were hiding behind machismo for fear of breaking down in front of their families. When he was released he went straight into a life of crime, and prison became a regular occurrence. My brother was killed in a car crash in 2017. He died young, but his death could have perhaps been avoided if we didn’t live in one of the most punitive countries in the world.